The Man at the Pub

Sunday, 26 April 2009

...goodbye, my friend

Sea Fever

By John Masefield

I must down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tideIs a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life.To the gull's way and the whale's waywhere the wind's like a whetted knife.And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Thursday, 16 April 2009

...yeah yeah? no no!

I never realised I was a gambler, until I saw this animated advertisement on the sidebar of a online newpaper.

And the million dollar question is...

Alarmingly, this advertisement has informed me that in the great 'Hairlotto' caper of which I unwittingly take part, not everyone wins (gasp!). The one-armed bandit spins it's three segments, randomly revealing three lucky... or not so lucky punters.

I will now present to you the three 'players', followed by a series of short questions.

"Hi, I'm Mr One. I enjoy waterskiing at my favourite resort, wearing $80 Calvin Klein underpants and maintaing a ridiculous, expensive yet fashionable pointy hairdo. My perfect day would be scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef followed by a romantic sunset dinner of freshly caught (by me) lobster with that special lady in my life, whoever she may be that week."

"Hi, I'm Mr. Two. I enjoy driving my 1964 convertible Porsche to my cabin in the mountains, where after a long day bareback horseriding through fields of wildflowers (in a masculine, 'Marlborough Man' kind of way) there's nothing I enjoy more than putting up my feet beside the open fireplace and freshly stuffed grizzly bear (shot by me) whilst sipping on some fine Cognac with the special lady in my life, whoever she happens to be that week."

"Hi I'm Mr Three. I'm into golf, strangling small animals and masturbation. Actually, I don't have that much time for golf anymore. Sometimes I get these dreadful headaches. I enjoy spending my evenings hanging around in bushes, with an axe, outside the bedroom window of that special lady in my life, whoever she may be that week"

Question 1: Who didn't go to a hairloss clinic?

Question 2: Which punter do I look most like?

Question 3: Guess which punter 9 out of 10 blokes look like, and will continue to look like, regardless of how much money and time they waste on trying to improve their appearance.

So it looks like it's finally arrived fellas; marketing male beauty products by preying on modern man's metrosexual insecurities of self image. I mean, women have been doing this to themselves for eons but now we're going to follow suit? WTF? Why are we making a rod for our own backs? It would seem that the golden age of marketing stuff to men, when being a squat, hairy, leather-skinned yob in a wifebeater, downing a pot of VB surrounded by mates slapping your back in approval was something to aspire to, is finally over. Still, we've saved a lot of money on cosmetics over the last... I don't know... four million years!

I've got a few issues (surprise) with this advertisment, which may be really disguising an unconscious desire to have a long flowing mane once again (not that I ever really did... I had a mane, but it didn't really 'flow', as happens after three years of washing your hair in saltwater). I have only one hairstyle with which I must live the rest of my life.... the RFS (Really Fuckin' Short), no longer than a #2 on the clipper comb scale. The mere contemplation of anything else brings me dangerously close to divorce. Its the "Crazy Old Balding Hippy Look Clause 1.2 " as written in the fineprint of my marriage certificate.

I digress. To begin with, not only did Mr. Three forget to go to a hair clinic, the sorry remnants of his hair has turned into a drunken bird's nest, his skin has turned a pasty white and he looks a wee bit confused. Now everyone knows that the bird's nest issue can be fixed with a nice comb-over, but obviously baldness had other side effects I was unaware of, like anemia, disorientation and an inability to hold a hairbrush.

Secondly, the gambling analogy confuses the intent of the advertiser. If male pattern baldness is a gamble as is implied, surely being concerned over such a loss is pointless. It's not like I can buy a losing ticket for a horserace, then go to a clinic to have my losing ticket made into a winning one. However, hairloss clinics only have any effect on 70% of men, and full regeneration on an even smaller percentage, so I guess it really is gamble. You could pay thousands of dollars for nothing, though I'm sure they try to sell nice toupees to the unsuccessful. So if saving your hair is akin to gambling, then I'm orf to buy some nice scalp tonic.

Perhaps the Shane Warne campaign wasn't working... after all, he is just a bogan butt-nugget (Yeah yeah!). But if we're going to sink so low as to imply that balding men are ugly, dishevelled, unsexy and genrerally uncool in order to sell a 'might-work' treatment for the financial gain of a few 'scienticians', then I'm afraid this is war, civil war, and I'll have to ask this marketer to step outside to sort this out, old school 'Kings Rules' bareknuckle style, or pistols at 10 paces perhaps? This is only fitting to defend the honour of my hair-lite brothers from this traitorous scourge, these filthy betrayers of the time honoured tradition of male cosmetic apathy. Hang em high!

Wednesday, 1 April 2009

... me bio

My ancestry is from all over Europe, from Cornwall and Scotland to Denmark to the Carpathian Mountains. It's even rumoured that I had a Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Aunty from Italy, who used to knock about with this bloke called Leo.

Aunty Mona

When I was a wee laddie growing up we didn't have a lot of money. Father ran off with the local Vicar, so me Mum (pronounced 'Moom') packed up and we wandered the streets of Melbourne, living in woodsheds and eating bread and dripping around a 20 watt candle. Ahhh...those were the days.

Me and me Moom, in the 'good ole days'

As my peers were mostly theives and murderers (prounounced 'mudderers') in my teenage years I joined a gang of fierce pirates, and roamed the Carribean Ocean, living in a orgy of alcohol, violence and buxom wenches. This period was even better than the 'good ole days', but unfortunately, I don't remember a minute of it, cause I was too pissed.

Me and the Gang, hanging out at Ye Olde Foggy Shopping Mall,Jamaica, during the school holidays.

When war broke out, I was one of the first to sign up to the fledging Royal Airforce, after failing the examination for the Women's Auxillary Balloon Corps. I was stationed on a small island in the Mediterranean Sea, flying sorties against Fritz with the 22nd Flying Wombats Squadron, (I'm not sure what happened to the first 21 squadrons) until I was injured in a freak plane malfunction after some unsporting chap decided to fire upon me.

Flt. Lt. Pub, with the 22nd Flying Wombats. Some say war is hell,but I reckon it was great. I got to fly aeroplanes, and I shot three Germans!

As I freed myself from the wreck, a large elm tree was lopped by a careless wood cutter, pinning me under it's mighty trunk. As a large pack of wolves descended on me, I managed to reach my trusty pocket knife and cut my leg clean off, dipped my foot in paraffin wax and lit it, using the flame to scare away the beasts. Suffering severe bloodloss, I managed to crawl the 1, 342 miles to the Ukraine, where I was nursed back to health by a kindly manure farmer. I soon became deeply engaged in Ukranian life and when my leg had grown back, I joined the local communist party and spearheaded the revolution with my rather serious mates Leon, Vlad and Karl.

I'm still a bit of a ledge in the Russian Federation's corridors of power

When Stalin rose to power, I heard a rumor he didn't like the cut of my beard, so I defected to the USA, where facial hair was largely unregulated. I soon became active in politics, was voted into the US Congress and soon unseated F.D. Roosevelt to become the often forgotten 32nd and a half President of the United States of America. However my tenure was short lived after someone read my CV and it was discovered I wasn't born in the US and had spent the last 15 years working for the communist party of the USSR.

A monument to me from my USA political heyday.

I went underground, where I was sheltered by a bunch of young adults from San Francisco who seemed a bit jaded with the conservative nature of 1960's USA. After eating some mushrooms I found growing in Golden Gate Park, I had a great idea so we stopped washing, started wearing baggy clothes, saying "Groovy Man" a lot and spouting bad poetry. I was soon arrested for not eating meat and became a symbol for 1960's hippy resistance.

My iconic mugshot (note the presence of actual hair)

After I busted out with the aid of a murderous cult, I cut my hair, died it white and bought my way into the New York speaky scene, becoming an artist focused on celebrity and popular culture, which ironically turned me into a celebrity artist of popular culture which I soon named 'Pop-Art', which is the noise your brain makes after viewing too much of it. Despite being a complete pretentious arsewipe, everybody loved me and I spent the next few years snorting cocaine and shagging Hollywood celebrities, before being shot by a rabid feminist, which I completely deserved.

Some works from my 1960's "Pretentious Dickhead" period still hangs about.

After my recovery, I fled the from USA and established myself as a transsexual showgirl in the slums of Rio De Janeiro. I made a great many friends amongst those shunned from society during these years and was never happier. But my facial hair was stubborn (due to a surgical mishap) and required daily attention. One day I shaved, but left a small tuft of hair just below my bottom lip, a style that I called "The Brazilian", in honour of my adopted country.

After a freak accident involving a large, sweaty Portugese man, a midget and a Llama, my gender had to be re-re-assigned and I moved back to Melbourne, Australia for my own protection. My life had come full circle, though I was now a washup, a wreck, a total has-been. I dabbled in soft drugs and petty crime, such as grafitti and doing 50km/h in school zones. But my life was about to take another fateful twist, when my grafitti self-portraiture was somehow 'discovered' by a trendy gallery owner, and I was again thrust into the spotlight.

Me working on a piece in a Melbourne alley, early 1990's

I was nicknamed 'Pubsy' and I reluctantly became the trendiest artist town, though remained reclusive, not wanting to be chewed up and spat out of the celebrity machine again. But my best intentions were thwarted by the all-consuming power of fashion and once again I found myself the subject of international intrigue.

I was big in London.I was big in the USA.I was big in Japan (but who isn't).

But being Australian-born, my talent made so big and successful that people started hating me, so much so that I could not walk the streets without fearing for my life. As a result of being so viciously ostracized, I sat down one day, warmed up the old HP notebook and started a blog.

And so thats where it ends folks. Right here, as I type t-h-e-s-e...w-o-r-d-s...

(HAHAHA April fool. I made the whole lot up and you fell for it! I really grew up in Glen Waverley and have never once done anything remotely interesting and have never been famous, despite telling an audience member joke on Young Talent Time when I was seven years old, but I'll save that gold for another post. Sucker!!!)